Tension
by evermre
Summary: Being a Royal Counsellor comes with its pros and cons.


Evie snaps.

Evie, who usually handled things with grace and a smile, snaps.

And it's all because Ben is an unexpected pessimist.

Working alongside Ben as his royal counsellor had been nothing but a dream for Evie. Sure most days it was hard work and not enough sunshine, but still it was work that was meaningful, it was work that she believed in, so she didn't mind it. Spending time with Ben had been getting easier too. At first it was a little awkward, he had started off just as Mal's boyfriend, just King Ben, and then that had slowly melted into her colleague Ben, her friend Ben. There was another rough patch in the middle, when Mal and Ben had broken up and Evie wasn't sure just _how_ she should be around him, but they had eventually moved past that too, and now it was back to a Ben she could laugh with and a Ben she loved to work with.

But there were only more and more rough patches after that.

It starts off with the list. The list of all the people Evie wanted to bring to Auradon, all the children she thought that deserved better than the Isle.

Ben had thought it was too long, too fast, too much.

"This is just a trial, to test things out, we can't bring over that many kids here just yet!"

Evie saw the logic, knew the point he was making, but still, _but still._

"I get that, Ben, I do. But listen, I'd rather bring them as soon as possible than have them suffer there any longer! The kids don't deserve that, none of them do! If we can help them, we should!"

Ben sighs, runs his hand over his face, and closes his eyes for a few long seconds.

"I want to help them too, I _really_ do, but we won't know if things will work out by bringing them all here at once. What if we let in someone who has intentions like Uma? What if-"

Evie cuts in then, this time sounding more pained than desperate.

"They deserve a chance, Ben. Even the kids who might have bad intentions, they deserve a chance. They deserve to know that they are more than just a villain, that they could _be_ more than just a villain."

Maybe it was the face Evie makes then, something pleading and sad, or maybe it was just that Ben didn't want to argue any longer, but he ends up agreeing to the list, to the fifty kids starting a new semester at Auradon next month.

It all goes smoother than Ben would've thought, and Evie starts working with an extra pep in her step, always smiling.

Ben's just expecting the other shoe to drop.

He doesn't have to wait long.

Just three months into the new school year, the kids from the Isle create a big divide between the students. It was the kids from the Isle VS. the kids from Auradon.

"This is why I told you to hold off on inviting so many students."

Evie just frowns.

"I _know,_ but there was always going to be a risk of these things happening, you knew that. Whether it was ten students or one hundred, things like this always have to be considered."

Ben wonders why Evie can't just admit that he was right to be cautious, to have insisted on a smaller number.

"But things definitely wouldn't be this bad if there weren't such a large amount of them! You and I both know that!"

Evie bites down on her lip, whether that was because she knew he was right or if it was because she was frustrated he didn't know.

"Back when it was just the four of us, just me, Mal, Jay and Carlos, didn't the same thing happen? It was literally the entire school against the four of us. We managed to get through that, so you know we can fix this!"

"I gave you this position so that you could make sure we didn't repeat the same mistakes! There's no point in you even being in this office with me if you're just going to let these things happen!"

That last part was definitely a mistake, something Ben didn't mean, just let slip in the heat of the moment.

But the damage was already done.

Evie's expression morphed into something blank, not angry or sad.

"Yeah, okay, you can take it back then, my position, since you do everything so well yourself."

And then she leaves. She doesn't even storm off, just walks away, slowly and quietly.

As his office door shuts behind her, the guilt and regret starts to creep up on him.

Evie is an irreplaceable presence, she helps him with more things than he'd like to admit, and she did her job well. He needed her here, he knew that, hell, everyone knew that, but his pride got in the way of asking her to come back, and eventually, an entire week had passed without Evie having set foot in the office.

It gets surprisingly lonely when it's just him in his office, even though it had started out just him. He ends up finding himself looking for Evie in the oddest of places. He keeps expecting to hear her humming at her desk, fluttering around the office back and forth with papers in her hand, smiling that familiar smile at him whenever they locked eyes.

Being alone ultimately felt much worse than arguing with her ever did.

He ends up drafting his apology two weeks in, two weeks without Evie, two weeks of stress and two weeks without anyone to help him through that. He starts to realise too late the impact that Evie had on him, the sheer amount she did not only for Auradon but for him too.

He's only halfway through his whole apology speech, when he hears a short knock on his door.

"Come in."

There's a small pause after that, where whoever was on the other side of the door seems to hesitate on stepping into the room, before the door opens to reveal a rather sheepish looking Evie walking in.

"Hi, Ben."

Ben's a little surprised, if his raised eyebrows were anything to go by, but manages to mask that with his usual diplomatic expression easily.

"Evie."

There's a moment where neither of them say anything, though it's clear they both want to. Evie looks to the floor, while Ben just looks straight ahead.

Evie opens her mouth first.

"I came here to apologise."

This time Ben doesn't bother to conceal the fact that he's shocked.

"Apologise?"

Evie sighs, but continues.

"I'm sorry, you were right, about the list. I know I shouldn't have let my personal feelings get so involved but I just ... it felt like you were saying some kids didn't deserve to be let in. I know that's not what you meant, in that moment it's just how I heard it, and I felt, I don't know? Hurt, a little angry, that you of all people would think like that. It made me think that you could've decided _I_ was too much of a risk to bring over and that I could've just been left in the Isle, not knowing any better, not able to wish for anything better, not believing that I deserved any better. And in that moment I just felt bad, for all those kids over there who were just like me when I was younger, so full of doubt and uncertainty, and I didn't want them to feel like they weren't enough to be chosen to come to Auradon."

Hearing all her thoughts now clears a lot of things up for him. He'd wondered why she had been so adamant about it, so desperate, when usually she was able to keep levelheaded no matter the challenges they were facing. It was because she saw herself in those kids, in every single one of them, and she felt sorry, she felt pity, she felt shame. She was able to live in peace, while they were all still suffering, she knew that she couldn't abandon her people.

"I had no idea you felt that way. I understand where you're coming from, and I should've tried to understand earlier. I'm sorry too, I should've just talked to you about it, I should've let you voice your concerns, I let my pride get in the way and didn't listen properly. From now on, let's just talk, okay? If you have any worries, just tell me, let me know. You're allowed to make this personal, you're allowed to feel all those things, I don't want you to feel like you have to hide that from me."

The tension seems to finally leave Evie, and a small smile starts to make itself present on her face.

Seeing her smile again makes Ben feel more relieved than he would've expected, and he ends up echoing his own smile back to her, an unspoken 'I forgive you' coming from the both of them.

They had managed to overcome that obstacle, like many of the previous ones put in front of them, but that little incident had ended up becoming the catalyst to something much bigger.

Despite the initial hiccup they faced, they go through with the plan, with keeping the kids from the Isle in Auradon. Evie does her best to work with the villain kids, because she knows they wouldn't be ready to listen to anyone else, and Ben does his best trying to convince everybody that this was going to work, that this wasn't a mistake. His parents were easy enough to sway, but the other parents, parents of the students who have grown up in Auradon, worry about the change Ben's bringing, worry about the possible corruption of their children.

He gets it, but also sort of doesn't. Just because the villain kids weren't _their_ kids didn't mean they still weren't children, and children needed to be protected, not ignored and disregarded.

But though he understands that, not many others do. Adults who were too stuck in their own traditions and beliefs, adults who claimed they knew better than a bunch of teenagers, and a king who had only just gotten crowned, yet are more close minded than those combined.

Under all that stress, Ben's facade of a calm and collected king starts to crumble.

"Ben, are you-"

"What if I can't convince them? What if they won't listen to me? What if they start rioting, or protesting, or-"

"Ben! Calm down, they wouldn't do-"

"God, maybe I was never fit to be king-"

"Don't say that! You know that you're-"

"If I can't even get my people to _listen_ to me-"

"Ben-"

"I can't just send the kids all back to the Isle, I couldn't do that to them-"

"Be-"

"But if the parents are contesting for them to leave what am I going to-"

"BEN!"

And then, Evie snaps.

Ben seems to finally realise that she had been in the room with him the whole time, just as she storms up to him, face scrunched into something that's either frustration or fury.

He half expects her to throw the book in her hand right at him, but instead, she drops it, and once she reaches him she grabs the collar of his shirt, pulls his head down, and kisses him square on the lips.

He's too shocked to react, eyes wide and body frozen, and then not even half a second later, Evie's pulling away.

Her face is slightly flushed, but her expression is stern.

"Have you come to your senses now?"

Ben's reeling still. Evie had just kissedhim, she _kissed_ him! Half of him is giddy beyond belief (which is the last thing he would've expected to feel), and the other half of him is just plain confused.

His heart starts hammering behind his chest, his mind now filled with nothing but Evie, and Evie's lips, and Evie's lips on his.

He almost forgets what he had been doing before the kiss entirely.

"I- What?"

Evie huffs, hands on her hips now.

"You weren't listening to me."

All he can do is blink at her, still shocked.

"You- You just ki-"

"Kissed you, yes. Seemed like the best way to shut you up."

Ben doesn't know if he should laugh or not.

"Well ... I'm listening now."

"You need to relax. I know that relaxing isn't in your dictionary, but that's what you need to do. You're so stressed you can't even see straight. If you have a problem we'll face it together, isn't that what you promised when you brought me in here? So I don't ever want to see you pacing around and losing your mind all by yourself ever again, okay? I should at least be pacing along side you, stressing with you. Let's figure this out _together._ And we _will_ figure it out, so stop worrying."

Ben exhales, a long, dragged out breath. He was so caught up in trying to fix it all by himself that he had forgotten Evie was there at all.

Maybe relying on other people once in a while would be fine, and he knows it would be, especially if it was Evie.

But now there was a whole other problem he needed to figure out.

"Okay ... okay, you're right. But what was with the ... kiss?"

Evie winces slightly at the question, as if she was half expecting him to just have forgotten about it.

"You drive me crazy, you know that? Working with you has been the most fun I've ever had, but you also know just how to push my buttons and make me angry. You bother me, you annoy me, you frustrate me, but then you turn around and- and you look at me with those eyes of yours, and you take care of me, and you're sweet to me, and I have no idea if you want me to hate you, or fall in love with you. So, so I just-"

And then Ben realises all sorts of things at once, in that moment, looking at the way Evie's cheeks are completely red, at the way she's almost unable to look at him in the eyes properly.

Things start to make a lot more sense to him, how lonely he felt whenever she wasn't around, how there was always something else bubbling underneath the anger whenever they fought, how his eyes always seemed to search for her whenever they were in a room together.

He makes up his mind, and starts to take slow strides forward to close the gap between them.

Evie doesn't seem to notice, until he's standing right in front fo her, and by the time she does, his lips have already descended onto hers.

It's her turn to be surprised this time, but it doesn't take long for her to recover, for her to reciprocate.

As Evie's arms reach up to wrap around his neck, Ben thinks that he definitely should've done this a _long_ time ago.

"What was that for?"

They break apart for air almost moments later, but their bodies stay glued together, his forehead resting on hers.

"You were right. Kissing really is the best way to shut someone up."

Evie laughs, and this time Ben recognises his heart beating out of his chest for what it is.

They spend the next few moments just like that, wrapped up in each other, forgetting the world around them.

But sooner or later they have to get back to reality, get back to being the King and his Royal Counsellor.

Right now though, they were just Ben and Evie, and maybe now they would always just be Ben and Evie, even while they're working, even while they're fighting.


End file.
